When the world thinks sport, the world thinks football – the round variety.

After a wide variety of summer barnstorming tours that brought the world’s great soccer clubs to the far corners of the globe, including a well-attended match at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena between pantomime rivals Chelsea and Inter Milan, the regular season soccer has started in England and across Europe, with 10 months of weekly action to come.

Many Americans would name the New York Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys and the Lakers as among the towering brands of professional sport. But even added together, those franchises lack the global media presence of a Manchester United or a Real Madrid.

When walking down the street in, say, Costa Mesa, passing teenagers and adults in an Arsenal or Barcelona jersey is a common occurrence. And Southern Californians share joint custody of David Beckham with the England football team, by way of AC Milan, which must be some sort of step forward for the global game in the U.S.

Interestingly, the word “soccer” is not some crude Americanization, but actually originated in England over a century ago.

Just as rugby football – the competing variant that features the ability to pick up the ball with your hands – was often affectionately referred to in pubs and clubhouses as “rugger,” the game that involved exclusively kicking the ball, and known as “association football” after the Football Association established to bring uniformity to the rules and matches, was often shortened to “soccer.”

To most of the world it remains simply “football” and is believed by many to be nothing less than the perfect game.

“American football” evolved very naturally out of rugby, with the addition of forward passes (originally to avoid a spate of fatalities on the line of scrimmage) and set off on its unique course of development. American participation in the great global sport was thereafter delayed and deferred. We have returned to it on the international level in fits and starts over the past two decades.

Some claim there is something almost un-American about 90 minutes of sporting effort so often being left as a draw. Draws have been equated in the past to “kissing your cousin.” However, as at least one European wit has responded, “There are cousins, and then there are cousins!”

One feature of football outside the U.S. that adds to its continuing prominence is the frequency of national match-ups and the unique and powerful emotions they engender.

In Europe, few cross-border matches can occur without some deep and harrowing reference to history and deep, lingering animosities. The battles, victories and defeats may have been many miles (and years) away from the stadium, but on the night of the match, those memories can rise to the front of people’s minds.

My own favorite football chant (which benefits for being suitable for publication in a family newspaper) is the one frequently heard whenever the Dutch play the Germans – “Can we have our bicycles back?”

I am touched that the Dutch, when recalling the Nazi occupation of their country, single out the fact that on their ultimate retreat in 1945, the Germans confiscated and stole the bicycles of Amsterdam.

“Can we have our bicycles back?”

Nationalism at a very basic level requires comparisons between countries – and their cultural traits, stereotypes, histories and faults – in order for a particular country to come up as the better of the two. Regular football matches between the rival’s national teams provide ample opportunities for such comparisons on playing fields and in tabloid newspapers.

Football, until recently, was also very closely tied to class. As the working man’s sport, it served as a regular focus around which individual and family loyalties could be developed and passed on from one generation to the next, father to son, standing side by side in the terraces.

But recent years have seen footballers rewarded with ever greater sums of money, their teams become the gaudy baubles of billionaire owners and “celebrity status” have a larger and larger impact on the modern game. David Beckham’s regular “summer holiday” residence at the Honda Center in Carson is perhaps as good an indication of any of the celebrity lifestyle that features so prominently in football today.

But the sport’s impact in 21st century daily life is undeniable. As the founders and codifiers of the game, the British have much to be proud about when reflecting on this legacy. However great the reach of the English language, the reach of football is greater.

The Duke of Wellington once famously remarked that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. In the coming century, philosophical, political, economic and cultural battles will also unfold in a variety of sports stadiums here and abroad. A growing understanding of, and respect for, the “perfect game” may help us all better engage our international neighbors as we face the common challenges that lay ahead.

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